1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an image forming apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
An image forming apparatus such as, e.g., a printer or the like having wireless communication capability is conventionally connected to wireless networks such as, e.g., a wireless LAN (Local Area Network) or the like to form images based on image information received from a host apparatus such as, e.g., a personal computer or the like. Specially, wireless LAN system referred to as a Hotspot (registered trademark in Japan) is widely spread in these years, with which the personal computers or the like used by many and unidentified users can be connected to the Internet through the wireless LAN. With such wireless LAN facilities, the image forming apparatus and the host apparatus which have the wireless communication capability can communicate via an access point connected to, e.g., the Internet or the like as well as can communicate with each other.
In consideration of use with such wireless LAN facilities, proposed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No, 2003-348,095, for example, is an image forming apparatus which participates in a plurality of channels in a power saving mode and boots up upon switching the channels at every activation period set for each channel. With this apparatus, the image forming apparatus implements control operation to prioritize the activated channel over the other channels where receiving data from other apparatus while communicating through the activated channel. Furthermore, the image forming apparatus also can implement control operation not to participate in the other channels while switching the mode of the activated channel to be in an active mode.
The conventional image forming apparatus such as described above, however, is not provided with adequate measure against risk in a case where used with low-security wireless LAN facilities such as open to the public, for example, the Hot spot (registered trademark in Japan) or the like. In a case of the image forming apparatus such as used with the low-security wireless LAN facilities, the high security is required for communication with an administrative server on, e.g., accounting records, operation records, or the like, because a mala fide third party can easily participate in the low-security networks. Because communicating through the plurality of channels using a single wireless communicator, the conventional image forming apparatus described above cannot select such the other end as set with the required security in a case of performing communication requiring the high security.
It is an object of this invention to solve the problem with the conventional image forming apparatus as described above and to provide an image forming apparatus, by switching exclusively the communication conditions, to establish the wireless communication even with a low-security access point during the regular communication and to establish the wireless commutation only with a high-security access point during the communication requiring high security, thereby preventing risks such as, e.g., wiretap on communication contents or impersonate attack by mala fide third parties.